Am I missing something here? Susan Dyer Reynolds penned a piece last month, you know, about her little incident with a cyclist on Page Street but now all the comments about her behavior have been removed. There was a whole mess of them last I saw.

Oh well.

Let’s see here, who about town is known for banning comments? Well, struggling blogger Eve Batey of SFAppeal banned me (for life!) from making comments on her blog a while back, for politely correcting her about the price of the fare for the now-defunct CultureBus, stuff like that. (I was just trying to help her, you know. Oh well.) And corrupt Willie Brown / Ed Lee lackey Randy Shaw of Beyond Chron / Tenderloin Housing Clinic, he bans comments all the time. Why’s that? He wants to get $90-something million from the City and County of San Francisco so that he can improperly influence the government into … giving him $100,000,000 the next go-around and he doesn’t want people talking about that?

Those are the two I can think of off-hand.

Anyway, I don’t think SDR planned on getting the response she got.

Do you think she received a lot of support from her rich white lady friends? I don’t.

Do you think she got negative comments from her peers? I do.

Maybe she’s learned her lesson.

We’ll see.

OH MY. HERE COMES AN ACCOUNT FROM THE GREAT WHITE NORTH, SAN FRANCISCO’S MARINA DISTRICT. (THINK OF THE PLACE AS SAN FRANCISCO’S VERY OWN LITTLE SLICE OF MARIN COUNTY.)

OK, LET’S CHECK THE WICKTIONARY, YOU KNOW, JUST TO BE SURE: “A cause of misery or death; an affliction or curse.” CAUSE, YOU KNOW, I STILL DON’T KNOW WTF YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT, EXCEPTING FOR YOU NOT LIKING BIKES ON PAGE STREET, WHICH, BTW, IS A FUNNY PLACE FOR A RICH WHITE LADY FROM THE MARINA TO BE HANGING OUT ON A REGULAR BASIS. BUT ANYWAY.

Driving home one recent afternoon, I stopped at a four-way sign, looked all directions, and proceeded into the intersection. Out of nowhere, a bicyclist flew through the stop sign to my left, riding right in front of me, forcing me to slam on the brakes.

UH, YOU LOOKED BUT YOU DIDN’T SEE. MMMM…. PERHAPS THE CYCLIST WAS SURPRISED THAT YOU ACTUALLY STOPPED. I’D RECOMMEND A CALIFORNIA STOP INSTEAD OF THE WAY THAT YOU STOP.

I came inches from hitting him, but he didn’t notice. As he pedaled along the right side of the street, I pulled up next to his rickety bike, rolled down my window, and said, “You have to stop at stop signs just like cars do.”

RICKETY? I THINK THAT’S MEANT AS AN INSULT? NOW ACTUALLY, RICH WHITE LADY, I THINK BIKES ARE GIVEN MORE LEEWAY IN SAN FRANCISCO THAN CARS. KEEP THAT IN MIND THE NEXT TIME YOU VENTURE INTO THE HAIGHTS.

The scrawny, pale, twenty-something with thinning curly dark hair – wearing only Bermuda shorts, a T-shirt and, of course, no helmet – flipped me off and shouted a string of expletives.

“Why is it you think you’re exempt from the law?” Suddenly and without warning, like the snake that he was, Curly whipped his head around and spit at me from the passenger side.

SNAKES WHIP THEIR HEADS AND SPIT? OK FINE, RWL.

I was in the process of rolling up the window, so his wad of spit didn’t hit me. Instead, it bubbled slowly down the window of my just-washed car.

JUST WASHED? KELL DOMAGE!

I kept pace with Curly, rolling the window down part way again. “What you just did qualifies as battery in the state of California,” I yelled, “and you should be arrested for road rage.”

UH, NOT REALLY.

Curly laughed and flipped me off with both hands as he steered the bike with his knees.

UH, IRL? I DON’T THINK SO.

“What are you going to do about it?” he asked smugly. Curly sped up and so did I, pulling in front of his bike, and trapping him between my SUV and the car parked next to him.

UH, I THINK YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO TELL PEOPLE STUFF LIKE THIS? I MEAN, YOU”RE NOT SUPPOSED TO PUT THIS KIND OF A STATEMENT INTO A NEWSPAPER, NO MATTER HOW PODUNK / PICAYUNE IT IS.

As he came to a screeching halt, I rolled the window down a couple of inches. What color he had in his pale face drained and suddenly the smug smile was gone. “Are you crazy?” he asked, his voice shaking.

“If I was crazy I would crush you like a bug right now,” I screamed. “Fortunately for you, I’m not crazy – but the next person you spit at might be and they could run you over or pull out a gun and shoot you.”

I’M SPEECHLESS.

Suddenly Curly was mute. Having made my point, and thinking maybe Curly learned his lesson, I rolled up the window and continued on my way home.

WOW, I THINK WE’RE GOING TO HAVE TO CUT THIS OFF. PICKING UP HERE:

More than ever, I believe it’s time to hold bicyclists accountable for their actions, and that means license numbers that are visible to cops, victims and witnesses – just like on the cars and motorcycles they share the streets with.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 24th, 2012 at 9:26 am and is filed under bikes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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I will agree with you that her tactics and snide comments on the appearance of the biker are childish and silly. I am however inclined to side with her on the underlying (snide free) opinions she is expressing.

Yes, she could be making this all up and she could be embellishing (Sicilians are known for that aren’t they), but I am taking for granted she is, for the most part, telling the truth. Going off the experience I have had with rude bicyclers, I think her account is more than likely at least 80% accurate.

Bicycle riders in the community do indeed need to be held to the same standard as other vehicles on the road. One needs only dig a couple of months deep in the annals of Bay Area news to find fatalities caused by bicycle accidents.

There is a growing self righteous attitude amongst a sect of bicyclers that is giving the entire community a bad name.

Maybe we should have have the community police themselves a bit more. Let each other know, “When you are on the road, on a bike, in San Francisco, you are speaking for a very large community. So watch what you say.”

If you actually read the original article, you discover that the bicyclist started the incident by running a stop sign, then flipping her off and spitting into her vehicle at her when she complained.

I would not have convicted her if she’d bashed him off the road. And if the cops don’t want that to start happening, they’d better start enforcing the law against bicyclists when they violate the right of way.

While I may not agree with the way she handled the situation, or the tone in which she delivered her story. I also subscribe to the school of thought that the Bicyclist’s in this city play chicken with cars, speeding through red lights, stop signs, blocking turn lanes, riding in the middle of the lane when they have a bike lane directly next to them.

They shouldn’t be accountable to all traffic laws because its unfair for them not to (which it is) they should be held accountable for all traffic laws because when they disregard the traffic situation and ride with reckless abandon, it puts the lives of others in jeopardy, as well as their own life. Let’s all just slow down, and respect each others right of travel.